Fic: Not Quite Right

[dragonyphoenix]

Title: Not Quite Right
Fandom: BtVS
Concrit: Please, in comments
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, not yet, but the will be once I've taken over the world. Bwah-ha-ha.
Summary: If Dawn pretends real hard, she's almost good enough.
Notes: Written for a prompt at Open On Sunday: technical difficulties


She found Dawn on the bed, crying quietly.

“You are my sister. I love you. I don’t want you to cry.” She seemed to look inward for a moment. “I’ll make you hot chocolate.”

“No, wait!” When she turned back, Dawn added, “Maybe you could sit here with me?”

Dawn arranged her so they were sitting side-by-side, arms around waists.

After a moment she asked, “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, but maybe we could be quiet for a while?”

“OK.”

Closing her eyes against, well, everything, Dawn rested her head on the closest thing she had to her sister’s shoulder.

Comments

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I also have cousins I've only seen pictures of. My aunt Millie stole a bunch of stuff from my mother and then vanished. Years later we learn she's living someplace in the south-west and now has a family of her own. I don't know how many years it was after grandpa's death that she heard about it. But that was more her call as far as I know.

It could be that Fran got tired. I'm surprised they stayed together as long as they did honestly. Fran is very conservative and Republican and Dad was in his activist phase when they were dating. I really expected them to break up years before they did.

I've put The Dance of Anger on hold at the libray and am second in the queue.

I am totally getting the "change back" bit from Dad. That's the problem. He's freaking out and, since I haven't been changing back, he's just getting more and more upset. Plus I've never learned to set boundaries. I'm not sure I have much choice about changing. I was looking at knives and thinking about stabbing them into my arms. I wasn't at the cutting myself point but I was definitely headed in that direction. Definitely makes me now want to go back there.

Nobody in my family knows that yet. Two friends in my women's group had "we don't want to know that" reactions, meaning they sort of averted their eyes and didn't say much. My therapist knows. That's been it so far. That's what I meant in an earlier comment when I said I'm not ready to share everything.

I'm never going to expect Dad to meet some sort of ideal but I would like for us to get along without him shouting at me. My friend Susan told me about issues she'd had with her mother. In her case the mother just couldn't accept Susan's side of things at all. I'm hoping things will go better with my Dad. We will seee.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I am totally getting the "change back" bit from Dad.

In the end it's his problem if he can't deal with it, but that's not helpful now, is it? It's like a long-distance marathon rather than a short sprint.

Definitely makes me now want to go back there.

been there, thought about doing that, don't want to go there again. But what we 'want' is rarely the issue.

I'm going to assume you're being entirely serious about the knives and I'm not going to tell you "don't look" because I can't. Because I've looked at knives and sticks and bottles and even a hammer in the past and wanted so badly to hurt myself, hurt SOMEONE. That anger, that frustration is raw and real and excruciating.

I am going to say "DON'T DO IT. PLEASE." And sometimes the best thing for me in a given moment has been to go ahead, imagine myself hurting myself; remember what it was like those few times I beat myself with sticks; or go all the way with the notion of picking up that piece of glass....

and I always end up with "ouch, that would HURT, and there'd be this mess to clean up, just ugh..." And believe or not? That helps, a little. It always gets me past that moment and I can sort of laugh at myself. It doesn't cure or solve or fix anything, but surviving moment to moment is sometimes all we can do.

I've mentioned this to a couple of friends and even my former therapists and they look at me like I've grown another head. So I definitely know the "we don't want to know this" reaction. that's pretty much what keeps us silent about abuse, etc as children; the shame of revealing the truth. And we're all so silent for so long that when someone breaks that and reminds everyone that the Hallmark card and laundry detergent commercial fantasies of happiness are just that, fantasies - it freaks everyone out. We're not used to sharing in a real way, esp eye-to-eye. (Hence the safety of the internet.)

BTW- another book rec is Rose Blauner's "How I stayed alive when my brain was trying to kill me." I sent my copy to a friend of a friend. I need to buy another one for myself.

My friend Susan told me about issues she'd had with her mother.

Hopefully the two of you can connect on this issue more often, because it's so common. WE ALL have parental issues and family shit. Pretending we don't to the outside world is what keeps it toxic.

It's called "nuclear family" for a reason.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I'm not in a near to cutting myself place at the moment. Even when it was worse than it is now, I was more headed in that direction rather than actually doing it. And it might not have been cutting but it wouldn't have been pretty. I might have had a heart attack first or a nervous breakdown. Stuff like that. I'm less stressed at the moment and at least my therapist didn't try to hide under a rock when I told her. Her voice became very sympathetic and she said something like I must have been hurting dreadfully to consider that.

Yeah, I'd never known that about Susan before. I really appreciated her speaking up about it.

I'm pretty sure the name "nuclear family" didn't originate as a toxic family kind of idea, although it does work well that way. *laughs*